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The Mort family of Sheen

The MORT family seem to have had associations with Sheen from very early times. A prayer list of 1532 has various families of Sheen listed. Some of the family members may have been deceased but still included on the prayer list. The names also may be some of those who gave gifts towards the fabric of Lichfield Cathedral and deceased members were included for prayful remembrance. MORTs are as follows:

On 26th October 1585, a Hugh Sherrat in Sheen was assaulted. A Thomas & Henry MORTE were up for assault along with Thomas Percival and his wife Grace.

The registers show that in 1606 a Richard MORTE was living at High Sheen, a yeoman who had a degree of prosperity, this Richard died in 1607 leaving his wife Elizabeth and the following children:
Richard eldest son
Ralph clerk
Anthony bur 1637 Sheen
Henry
Gervase 1606 Curate of Sheen married Margaret
Grace married William Wardle

His will also mentions a brother Thomas MORTE.

A son of Gervase MORTE, Thomas MORTE rebuilt High Sheen circa 1663, his widow Mary was assessed for hearth tax in 1666. Ann, a daughter of Thomas and Mary was the second wife of Thomas Sutton whose first wife had been Ann Hallowes who died in childbirth in 1677. This second marriage was very advantageous to the MORTE family as Joan Hallowes who was Ann Hallowes’s grandmother died in 1698 having survived her only son, and left her substantial property and land holdings to Thomas Sutton and members of the MORTE family, after a dispute with other Hallowes family members. Joan Hallowes’s will mentions Richard MORTE of Peel Hall in Little Hulme Lancashire, Gent., Adam MORTE of High Sheen, Staffordshire, Gent., sons of Thomas MORTE deceased. Ann Sutton nee Morte is also deceased and is described as the eldest daughter of Thomas MORTE deceased. Legacies were also left to the children of Thomas Sutton and Ann Morte. Thomas Sutton was living in Wetton, Staffordshire at the time the will was drawn up in 1695.